Representatives of the philosophy of law from the end of the XVIth and beginning of the XVIIth century considered Poland to be one of the European republics. That was quite accurate, irrespective of the fact that it was also a monarchy. The nature of its political system was determined among others by: free elections (election of the king by the whole nobility), factual sovereignty of the noblemen’s republic, and its political structure around the sovereignty of the nation understood as nobility and assuming authority to be derived from this sovereignty. As a result Poland was placed among such nations as Venice, England, and the Netherlands.

In the development of the Polish parliamentary system the key elements were: the constitution Neminem captivabimus, the constitution Nihil novi, and King Henry’s articles and in relation to them Pacta conventa. The constitution Neminem captivabimus (two acts: of 1430 and of 1433) protected landed noblemen against arrest without a court sentence (the English Habeat corpus stemed from 1679). The constitution Nihil novi (1505) constituted the legislature of the two-chamber Seym (parliament) consisting of the senate and the deputy chamber, as well as of the King. King Henry’s articles from 1573 obliged the king to convoke the Seym every two years. At the same time, Pacta conventa, since 1773 on the occasion of every royal election, guaranteed the nation composed of szlachta (nobility) concrete promises made by the future king.

Jean Jacques Rousseau spoke with enthusiasm about these traits of the Polish political system. He was aware that they had realized in a way his idea of social contract even before the idea was formulated. It was -- factually and formally -- a social contract binding the state authority under sanction of its cancellation. King Henry’s articles contained a very important act named De non praestanda oboedientia, allowing the possibility of renouncing obedience to authorities in case it essentially violated binding laws. This act was related, on the one hand, to systemic state rules used in the Middle Ages (for instance the Hungarian "Golden Bull" from the XIIIth century). On the other hand, it is possible to find in this political doctrine an echo of the Thomistic thought, that tyrannic authority ceases to bind the conscience. From the same source stemmed the Old Polish custom entitling nobility to convoke mutinies (rokosh), that is camp or horsemen’s seyms, known earlier in Hungary, as well as to establish confederations.

The matter of the nation’s sovereignty combined with the cause of equality: to whom did the principle of equality pertain? The sovereignty and equality of the noblemen’s nation was rather ideological than factual. This community comprised both magnates, owners of hundreds of villages and of several towns, and landowners owning several villages and a large manorial farm, as well as yeomen who in terms of their possessions did not differ from peasants. Moreover, it included even szlachta members deprived of any land, even if they were not always poor. It was a large mass of people. Historians and demographers dispute what percent of the Polish population constituted szlachta at that time. Most often they mention numbers oscillating around 10 percent. The number may have been smaller or greater; in any case, it was several times greater than in other European countries. Their number was comparable to the number of people entitled to vote in England on the eve of the first World War.

We have to realize that it was a democratic society not only with regard to the sovereign power of the society, but also with regard to the scope of its competences, clearly delimited by law, and because of the range of competences of the elected bodies. This process went on later to include other social layers. It was a process of widening rights through broadening the notion of citizenship.

At the beginning it was a postulate of more mature Polish liberation movements; later, since the restitution of the Polish state in 1918, it became a reality. It was a process of endowing with civil rights peasants and workers who were incorporated into the notion of the nation in the XIXth and XXth centuries. The process of including peasants in civil society is older; concerning workers the process was initiated in the second half of the XIXth century.

Related to the problem of the sovereignty of the nation there was a complex of fear of abolutum dominium (the absolutist state), as a threat to the Polish "golden liberties" that must be defended incessantly and with utmost vigilance. In the course of the history of the First Polish Republic (till its partition at the end of the XVIIIth century) the ideology of absolutum dominium had no considerable influence in Polish society. It had no influence later when the struggle for liberty became the object of the actions of Polish liberation and democratic movements.

One characteristic detail suggests analogies between the situation of Poland in that distant epoch and that in the United States of America, where possessing and wearing weapons was a sign of liberty. In Poland it was a saber worn by the side that distinguished noblemen from the rest of the population. The Polish noblemen’s democracy was supported by the conception of maintaining a balance between the society and its ruler also in the military domain. It was understood that this balance of power must be maintained lest liberty be lost.

The second vision, represented by the Cracovian historical school from the XIXth century, claimed that Poland fell because, due to an excess of anarchy and egoism, it could not support a strong state. This was its "original sin" that caused it to be removed from the map of Europe.

Order, discipline and a strong state to support these were never values particularly appreciated in Poland. In any case, they were sacrificed to the cause of liberty. There is a certain sympathy of historians and of the Polish historical tradition for Stefan Batory (1533-1586), prince of Transylvania, and from 1576 king of Poland, who was a partisan of strong power and an army reformer. Jan Zamoyski (1542-1605) too was a strong figure of Polish policy of the XVIth century who introduced Stefan Batory to the Polish throne. He aimed to strengthen the royal power, and at the same time attempted, with help of the middle szlachta, to break domination by the magnate families. Despite this, the idea of "golden liberties," as they were called in the time of the noblemen’s Poland, prevailed.

There has been constant and absolute hostility of public opinion in modern Poland towards aristocratic institutions that introduced a division within the "noblemen’s nation" that exerted sovereignty towards the authorities. In the XVIIIth and in the XIXth century this whole attitude and stable system of values was shaped by defense against the threat to Polish sovereignty from Poland’s bad neighbors states under absolutistic (today we would say totalitarian) rule that was short on freedom. Later the struggle with the invasive absolutistic states that swallowed the Polish state and enslaved its citizens was also a decisive influence.

Regarding the category of "citizen" there is some analogy between the Polish notion of a citizen (obywatel) and the term citoyen as understood in France. Recently the difference has become clear between being a citizen of a state and a subject, that is, an instrument that performs its task in total dependence on the state which is its owner and authoritatively decides about its actions and destiny. In confrontation with absolutistic states the habitants felt sharply that they are only subjects, whereas until Poland’s partition we were citizens, that is, full-fledged participants of a sovereign national community.

In 1976, when our country began discussions about changes in the constitution of the Polish People’s Republic, one of the proposed changes, suggested by the central authorities of the Polish Communist Party (PZPR), would clearly state that fulfillment of duties is a condition of enjoying civil rights. The protest aroused by this proposal was so violent and common (among others also the official authorities of the Catholic Church in Poland participated in this protest) that the mentioned amendment was withdrawn as one of a very few proposals cancelled.

Combining civil rights and duties is justified, but only when it is stated that the correlation between them is indispensable in the order of moral duties, and not when it is imposed as a legal norm. Especially when the interpretation of what belongs to civil duties remains in the hands of a totalitarian ideological state that demands from its citizens the realization of the goals of this state and puts them ahead of all duties as their fundamental obligation.

It is a moral ideal of a citizen that whoever takes part in power is also co-responsible. This conviction grew strong since the last decades of the XIXth century. Rights do not result from duties, but duties from rights. We have responsibility in proportion as we share decision making and influence. In 1976 we understood that if we do not have any influence, we also do not have any responsibility. Only since 1989 has this state of affairs begun to change: as our influence increases, there is an increase also in our civil responsibility.

Another characteristic situation took place in implanting English scouting in Poland and of formulating the Polish version of scouts’ oath and law. We are not always aware that in the English text, whose author was Baden Powell, both in the oath and in the first article of the law there is a passage about a duty to "be loyal" towards the king. So first, the passage refers scouts to the king, and secondly, it urges them to "be loyal" (a word that is not easily translatable into Polish). In the Polish version of the scout oath nothing is said about the king (for what monarch would it mean?), but there is also nothing about loyalty or fidelity. Instead, the text speaks about service. Scouts are to "serve the Fatherland and to fulfill conscientiously their duties".

To "serve the Fatherland" means certainly more than to "be loyal", and Fatherland is something more than state and state authorities. Service is something more than loyalty; and at the same time something less. For as a citizen serving voluntarily my Fatherland, I have the right not only to have my own views, but even to show overt objection if authorities of my state order me to act against my conscience. It is my civil right and my civil duty.

Such a conception of service to the country is very close to the ideology of the American constitution with its right to objection against authorities, to civil disobedience. This right is deeply rooted in the Polish culture and has been observed at least since the XVIth century.

This fact of confrontation with a state that was de facto alien, with state authorities imposed violently by means of the armed forces of neighboring state, once again put in motion the well known Polish defensive ideology that is, to a certain extent, anti-state. The Polish People’s Republic (PRL) began to be treated in the same way as formerly Poland’s partitioners, that is, as an author and means of oppression. The only Marxist theorem accepted by the Polish society was that the state is a means of oppression. In this situation, society’s task was to defend itself against the state, to struggle with it, first, in the name of the defense of individual rights; second, in defense of the rights of groups that were especially oppressed by that state, and third, in defense of the rights of the nation or of society as a whole.

All this took a very dramatic shape on December 13, 1981 with the proclamation of martial law in Poland. This was directed against the majority of the society and was perceived as launching a war between state authorities and the nation. To this attack, committed in spite of the former "social agreements" between authorities and workers (that is, the society), the nation answered by declaring war on these authorities and the state that once again manifested itself as invasive and occupational.

In 1983 on a visit Rome (one of the first from our group, for all the others were denied passports) the Holy Father said: "Do not forget that the state is a value for us, that state is a national value". At first I was shocked and replied that on December 13, 1981 I ceased to feel like being in my own state and felt that I am again clearly under occupation. The pope repeated once again: "But the nation needs its state. Think about it: one day you will have to take responsibility for it, for the nation needs its state."

It seems to me that we indeed reach the moment when we have to switch, that is, to stop fighting with the state and to start fighting for the state. We have to start to look for methods of regaining it for the nation, as if turning upside down the formula that authorities of the People’s Republic of Poland attempted to insert into the constitution in 1976. We should bear as much responsibility as we have liberty and influence. If so, then the more we gain such liberty and influence, the greater our responsibility. Such an understanding is, in my opinion, poorly rooted in the Polish sociopolitical culture. This suggests again a comparison of three national and cultural traditions: the Polish, the English, and the German, with their different attitudes towards liberty and social order. The greatest shift towards highlighting social order happened in the frame of the Prussian state, the greatest shift towards liberty took place in the Polish tradition. It is interesting that in Poland many look to the English political culture thinking that there the principle of "liberty and order secured by authorities" was realized in the healthiest way. This balance was present in the Polish sociopolitical thought, but was often lacking in the consciousness of the broader masses.